


Different This Time

by orphan_account



Series: could've been [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Jjbek, M/M, Religion, church stuff, indulgent oneshot, jj cries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 15:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "I love you, Bella," is, for some godforsaken reason, the answer when she says, "You didn't take communion today, JJ," in the most unassuming, wondering tone.





	Different This Time

It's different from when you're seven and you accidentally break that expensive piece of home decor someone gave your mother, it falls off the top of the piano, and you try and cover it up but you're only seven, and it doesn't work, and you have to confess anyways.

Different from when you're eleven and you tell a lie about this particular school event your parents don't really know about because  _they're party poopers!_ and they wouldn't let you go, but they find out, and question you before you all pull out of the parking lot: you have this knot in your stomach even though you're angry.

Different from when you're fifteen and you borrow the car with a friend, accidentally smash the mirror so your parents  _find out_ you borrowed the car (because you didn't ask permission) and then they find out what kind of event you used it to go to, and you promise to not do that again, because you're old enough to feel  _really, truly_ bad when you see the looks on their faces.

At Mass on Sunday, Jean-Jacques Leroy  _knows_ it's different.

When people come and congratulate him on bronze at the GPF, it's still different.

He's so  _very_ well trained to smile and talk himself up, used to it, it  _is_ his own invention after all, but, it's still different.

Because usually guilt washes away quickly, after forgiveness, or at least after a few days after everyone half-forgives, and you put the experience behind you.

This isn't an experience and the guilt is a deep pit of nausea that gathers all Jean's senses into a tangled knot, flushing from his gut to his chest, stopped somewhere there by what will he has left. And it seems to like to do this whenever they take the familiar right-hand turn beside the old martial arts school to the expansive paved lot, tan-colored building with elegant pointed dark-grey peaks, a belltower, beautiful windows. Whenever he says good morning before the priest is at the altar. It lunges up, clawing at his ribcage when he's mouthing - not saying, anymore - the confession at the start, curls around his throat during the Creed, shakes into his hands when he crosses himself and receives the Host.

Well, he's been  _trying_ to convince himself it's an experience. One year. Age 16-17. Not even a year, just a training season, and cut a little short at that. The Leroys live in Quebec, where Jean trains at a local rink. One year. One rinkmate. Just an experience. Something that messed with him. He's over that now, he's engaged for crying out loud and - but -  _but_ -

He can't say it out loud, but it's not an experience, it wasn't just something that happened to him. Because he can't forget it or  _him -_

He'll try, though, late nights at the rink, land training mornings and his online courses in the afternoon -

Next Sunday he goes to church with Bella, and oh God, does he love her, but increasingly he thinks it's maybe not in  _that way_ despite the ring on her fourth finger. He likes Bella's church better than Mass at St. Peter's, because the music's pretty good if you come on the right Sunday but he can still  _feel_ the guilt soaked through his insides and during the singing - he looks at Bella and she's so  _perfect._ She's the last to tell you, but she's the most perfect human Jean's ever seen: honest, encouraging, selfless, kind, strong - he's learning to hate himself for considering giving this up, what they have.

He can't take the crackers and juice when they come around. He can't. He's sick with he doesn't know what. He wants to, put on the front, but something the pastor says about  _examining yourself_ hits too close to home. Of course Bella picks up on it. Of course she brings it up later, in the most non-judgemental way possible. They've returned from a walk through the park with Bella's Yorkie. They're in her apartment. Moderately-sized, sunlight slanting through windows and illuminating dust. Her art hanging on the walls: a lot, at Jean's insistence.

"I love you, Bella," is, for some godforsaken reason, the answer when she says,  _you didn't take communion today, JJ,_ in the most unassuming, wondering tone.

". . . Yes, JJ?" Bella looks up at him. Her red lips and almond eyes and sharp, dark bob. He has a treasure right here. He'd be a fool. He'd be  _such_ a fool. "I know you do. Me too."

"I . . . Bella, I feel so bad about this. You know," and he's holding her hand gently in his, the one with the ring, he holds it up so it flashes in the light, "I love you so much, I do," he manages. Bella looks concerned now.

"JJ, what's wrong?"

He's so helpless. He doesn't know where to begin. "Can you . . . do you know?" Running a hand through his messy undercut. Bella knows him better than he knows himself, sometimes, he thinks.

She casts her gaze down. "I  _know_ something's the matter. Don't get me wrong. I felt it too. It's been between us for a long time."

Jean exhales. Bella looks back up.

"But you're not sleeping now, are you?"

They don't live together. They don't sleep in the same room. That's for after the second ring goes on her finger. But it might never at this point.

Jean traces under his eye with a finger. "No," he says, barely.

"You're spending all your time at the rink."

"Yes."

"You know this happened last season, too." Bella leans against him and sighs against the warmth of his red-orange hoodie. "You were just stressed about the GPF with Yurio entering senior divison."

"It's not that now," Jean says. Even as Bella's calm helps him calm, she's his antidote, his remedy, he knows he's going to ruin it all. "I think, Bella - I love you in one way. And I love someone else another." His voice cracks. "I can't make it - change. I  _can't._ "

Bella looks up at him. He's sure there's hurt in her dark, dark brown eyes, flecked light by sun at the edges. "Oh, JJ." That's all she says. That's all! For seconds, Jean feels like the devil. He feels like some kind of tool. He's so sick of it all. He's so sick  _with_ it all.

Bella looks down again. "You know, I thought that could be . . . what was up." She's looking at her ring. "But you didn't say anything . . . so . . ."

She sounds so  _sad._ God, Jean hates hearing her like this! "I didn't, Bella, I didn't know, I thought we could- I thought I could - "

"So you don't  _want_ to be with me?" Bella frowns. "I thought we only went so far - I thought when you kissed me, that was  _respect,_ that was a  _promise,_ but what is it now? Something to pretend with?"

"No!" Jean clenches fists. "-Yes!" He knows, one day in an airport when he was 17, he made a promise, but it wasn't to Bella. Then the tears start. " _I don't want to lose you,_ " breaks in his throat.

Bella sighs. "JJ, me either." She shakes her pretty head. She reaches up a thumb and wipes away his tears. "Tell me. Tell me why. You won't tell anyone else. Tell me why we're like this now."

"I love your smile and how you always see the good in people. I love us as kids and in highschool and everything we've done together. I love how we travel together and see the world and you make me put my skates on when I just want to burn them and I love when we spend late nights planning the next charity concert but I'm  _not in love with you, I want someone else - someone else next to me in the dark and it's not good-"_

Jean struggles to hold himself together. He's not, really. "I love so many things I get confused how it really is, you know?"

"I know, JJ," Bella says, sadly, fondly.

Jean swallows, forcing the terrible guilt down inside him, because it's full-out laughing at him now,  _see, this is what you knew would happen, you've done it anyways!_ "H-how do you feel about us," he asks.

Bella turns her head aside. They still stand close. "I was looking forward to everything. But since you took bronze and we haven't talked about weddings at all, I knew something was off. And then you getting so busy. I like to give you your space. Maybe this time I shouldn't have."

"I'm so sorry Bella, I love you so much," Jean breaks, again, he's breaking into pieces.

"Do you want this back?" Bella holds up her hand with the ring on it.

Jean still has more to say. He's held himself up alright so far. But Bella deserves the truth. Hell, it's the very least he can give her. And maybe the most, he's run himself into ruin. Black thoughts. "There's - no, I don't - but you have to decide. I don't want to feel like this! I didn't want this, Bella - I just can't get rid of it! I can't wash it out, I begged God so hard Bella, to not feel like this -"

She places a hand on his chest, which heaves up and down, slowing the panic. "Who is it, JJ?" A shake of the head, worried.

Jean's lips form the hallowed words. Damning all the same. "Altin," he says. And he has to hang his head, there are tears fresh streaming down because it's the first time it's spoken and he's sick to the stomach, he wraps his arms around himself.

" . . . Jay," Bella says softly.

"It's not j-just some mistake, either." Jean knows Bella knows Beks, with Jean and Beks being rinkmates for those months, they hung out together often, she talked to Otabek just at the GPF recently, they're  _friends,_ yeah, they're friends, too. "I-I want him s-so bad, I -" Jean breaks off because he knows well all the nights he's spent jerking off to his imagination and the other's name, in place of Bella's, it was  _never_ her - "I'm so sorry, I love you Bella, I love you, you're the best I've ever had, I don't deserve you-"

And Bella embraces him, but it feels like maybe he's a child again and this is the hug from the parent, after he's messed up, just to reassure that it's forgiven as best it can be, but make no mistake, the rules remain.

 _"I love you I love you I love you,"_ is all Jean can say, the phrase stutters off so quietly and he leans down onto Bella's shoulder, he's a complete mess. There's no way to redeem anything, but he would try.

Eventually she puts him back at arms' length.

"We need to spend some time apart," she says. "You need to talk to Otabek."

Oh, right. "We . . . s-sort of did . . . at the GPF. He came to my room," Jean says. He  _still_ hasn't had the nerve, the guilt's choked him off, but he's joined with it, he hates himself as much as  _it_ does, he's not fighting it any more.

Bella crosses her arms. "And?" It's not angry, just the possibility of hurt. Bella never presumes.  _Oh God, he doesn't deserve her._

"We didn't-" Jean says pleadingly. "We stopped. I s-stopped because," but he can't finish. He looks down. " _But I didn't want to._ "

And it's then that Bella slides the ring off her finger.

That's where the last of Jean's hopes rip off and plummet from where he's pinned them.

It's not unkind, or angry, but it's quite final. Most definitely final.

She gives it back to him.

It now sits in his palm, shining all the same.

"You need to talk to God, not me, anymore," Bella says. Isabella. He doesn't feel like he merits the right to think of her as  _Bella_ now.

"Right." Jean swallows. He's fucked up so, so bad. He's supposed to be the  _good boy._ His parents still think he is. The world still thinks he is. Well, they'll figure it out soon.  _He's fucked up and he's not been strong enough to rub out the stain on his soul, and it won't go, it won't go._ Altin's body under his hands is too sickeningly good,  _it won't go:_  mouths and lips together.

"You should go. We need to stay apart for a while." Bella makes it clear that they're done for now. Jean's hurt her. He should've told her sooner. He lied to himself for too long. He told himself it would go away.

Jean leaves. The absence of any greetings good-bye lengthens the hole in his heart, tugs it wider. The ring's still clenched in a hand. Outside it's sunny, clear blue sky and white clouds, trees in full, green leaf; a few cars on the street; Jean goes to his red Altima and slips in the driver's seat, all on autopilot.

Talk to God? About what? God's supposed to know you inside and out. He must know by know that Jean's a lost cause. You're supposed to be able to come back and get the guilt washed clean, turn a new slate. There's something different to this guilt, which still twists away at Jean's insides, permanent nausea. Because he - he doesn't  _want it_ gone, because if it goes that mean's he's straightened up, put himself back on the good path, and he's lost what he needs and wants so bad: the boy he trained with for a year, tried to forget about for two.

If this is what he must suffer, then he's a martyr to the cause of his own soul, and so be it.

Nevertheless, he leans against the wheel and sobs. The ring drops from his grip. He loves too deeply; too widely; in the wrong places; and he can't keep it all. It's all a mess. He's always patched himself up before; forgiveness or a facade; but this time it's different, he's too far gone.


End file.
